PROProduction

Compare baseline and monitoring LiDAR epochs to quantify elevation change and disturbance intensity.

workflow pro

Workflow Narrative

LiDAR Change and Disturbance Analysis

Problem It Solves

Where has significant terrain or canopy disturbance occurred between LiDAR acquisition epochs?

Who It Is For

LiDAR monitoring programs, forestry operations, and infrastructure change-monitoring teams.

Primary User

Asset monitoring groups, agencies running repeat LiDAR acquisitions, and environmental compliance teams.

What It Does

Performs epoch-to-epoch LiDAR change analysis using tile-native processing.
Produces per-tile delta rasters plus a disturbance manifest and run summary.

How It Works

Accepts baseline and monitoring tile sets (arrays or directories), sorted and paired per tile.
Grids each tile to surface rasters and harmonizes monitor tile CRS/grid to baseline per pair.
Computes elevation delta and thresholded disturbed area metrics per tile.
QA acceptance guidance:
`status=pass` indicates no seam-risk or low-support warnings were triggered.
`diagnostics.acceptance_thresholds.min_valid_cells_per_tile` defaults to 500 and flags sparse tile support.
`diagnostics.acceptance_thresholds.seam_risk_warn_cv` defaults to 0.75 and flags elevated inter-tile inconsistency.
Review `diagnostics.tile_diagnostics` before publishing disturbance totals for operational reporting.
MVP hardening assets:
Municipal ingestion guide: `docs/internal/development/LIDAR_CHANGE_SIDEWALK_MUNICIPAL_SCHEMA_INGESTION_GUIDE_2026_04_14.md`
Benchmark fixture scaffold: `tests/fixtures/lidar_change_city_benchmark/`

Inputs

Parameter	Optional	Description
baseline_tiles	no	Baseline LiDAR tiles (array or directory path).
monitor_tiles	no	Monitoring-epoch LiDAR tiles (array or directory path).
resolution	yes	Output tile-surface resolution in map units.
min_change_m	yes	Absolute change threshold for disturbance accounting.

Outputs

Parameter	Type	Description
tile_directory	directory	Directory containing per-tile delta rasters.
tile_manifest	JSON	Per-tile output and disturbance metrics manifest.
summary	JSON	Machine-readable summary report containing run metadata, QA diagnostics, and key metrics.
html_report	HTML	Human-readable customer-facing report generated from the summary contract for stakeholder review and QA traceability.

Python Example

import whitebox_workflows as wbw

wbe = wbw.WbEnvironment(include_pro=True, tier="pro")

summary, manifest, tile_dir = wbe.lidar_change_and_disturbance_analysis(
    baseline_tiles="data/lidar_2023_tiles/",
    monitor_tiles="data/lidar_2025_tiles/",
    resolution=2.0,
    min_change_m=1.0,
    output_prefix="output/lidar_change",
)

print(summary)
print(manifest)
print(tile_dir)

License Notice

Use of this function requires a license for Whitebox Workflows Professional (WbW-Pro). Please visit www.whiteboxgeo.com to purchase a license.

Project Links

WbW Homepage User Manual Learn More